More of the Music of Led Zeppelin
I expect that pretty much everyone knows the famous story by now.
Robert Ludwig’s “Hot Mix” (a complete misnomer, mostly propagated by those with a poor understanding of what is involved in making records – the mix never changed, only the mastering) of Zep II was causing the needle to jump the groove when Ahmet Ertegun’s daughter tried to play it on her cheap turntable, so they recut the record with more compression and cut the bass. (The recut, if you have never heard one, may take the cake for the worst sounding pressing of the album ever made.)
Our Triplanar Mark 6 / Dynavector 17dx combination seems to play the original just fine. Amazingly well in fact.
Here’s a challenge for all the Heavy Vinyl fans in the world:
Name all the Heavy Vinyl records that sound as good or better than RL’s cutting of Zep II.
Modern engineers tell us they can cut records better now than ever before, with all the bass and dynamics that previous engineers were supposedly forced to limit for the cheap tables and carts of the past.
So where are these so-called “new and improved” records, the ones with better bass and dynamics?
I have yet to hear one. Perhaps someone can point me in the right direction.
Send your list — even if your list only has one entry! — to tom@better-records.com
UPDATE 2022
This commentary has been up for many years and we have yet to hear of a single example. Which is exactly what we would have expected, because there is almost no chance that any such records exist, regardless of what you may have read elsewhere.
Further Reading
Here are some of our reviews and commentaries concerning the many Heavy Vinyl pressings we’ve played over the years, well over 200 at this stage of the game.
One final note of honesty. Even as recently as the early 2000s we were still somewhat impressed with many of the better Heavy Vinyl pressings. If we had never made the progress we’ve worked so hard to make over the course of the last twenty plus years, perhaps we would find more merit in the Heavy Vinyl reissues so many audiophiles seem to prefer.
We’ll never know of course; that’s a bell that can be unrung. We did the work, we can’t undo it, and the system that resulted from it is merciless in revealing the truth — that these newer pressings are second-rate at best and much more often than not third-rate or worse.
Setting higher standards — no, being able to set higher standards — in our minds is a clear mark of progress. We know that many of our customers see things the same way.
